Reed walked by Duncan with her bags of purchases, leaving the groceries on the counter in the kitchen.

"Wait a minute, aren't you going to show me what you bought?" he protested to her receding back. "I was waiting for a bit of a fashion show."

Reed turned around. "I don't think there's time. I need to get it all put away before the Apple Store genius comes, right?"

"I reckon, but—" he turned to Nancy. "Did something happen while you were out?"

Nancy shook her head. "Here are the papers from today," she began.

"Lord, I don't want them," Duncan said with a wave of his hand. "Just hand them all off to Arnold, or whoever's taking care of banking this month, yeah?"

Nancy shrugged and put them back in her bag. "You need anything else?"

Duncan shook his head. "Don't think so, no. Like I said, this is going to be an easy summer for you, not a lot going on until October." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks loads for today, though, couldn't have managed without you."

Nancy smiled. "Just doing my job, no thanks necessary, you know that." She looked around. "You sure you don't want me to stay and take care of the paperwork with the Apple guy?"

Duncan shook his head. "Nope, that's all sorted already. Thanks though."

"Okay, I'm off, then." Nancy leaned in and kissed Duncan on the cheek. "Ooh, Dunc, you smell yummy, you using that new cologne I got you for Christmas?"

Duncan smiled. "I think so, yeah, thanks."

Reed was listening from her bedroom for the sound of Nancy leaving before she came out. She had no desire to spend even one more second in her company. She also wanted to put on something else for the Apple guy's visit, as she'd definitely been in these clothes too long.

She grabbed a yellow top and a pair of shorts that she'd bought from Target and cut the tags off so she could put them on, along with a new pair of undies and a new bra also, since everything she was wearing just felt grubby and generally manky. She figured that, even if the underwear hadn't been washed, they had to be at least marginally cleaner than what she had on.

Uh oh.

Everything was okay until she got to the top. She pulled it on and felt it pinching at the neck and squeezing at the bust and stomach. She looked in the mirror as she pulled at it. She then pulled it off to look at the size, to see if she'd made a mistake.

It was the right size, or so she believed.

She quickly grabbed another shirt, a button up blouse this time, and pulled it on.

It wouldn't button.

OMG.

Reed knew she'd gained a little weight over the last few months, but surely she hadn't gained that much? A whole size?

She pulled out a few more shirts, but none of them fit.

She heard Duncan letting the Apple Genius guy in, and calling her.

"Coming," she responded. "Just changing my clothes, be there in a sec."

Finally, with no choice, she pulled on her old shirt, the one she'd been wearing the day of the accident, and went out to meet the Apple guy, Bryon. If Duncan noticed she was wearing the same shirt, he didn't mention it.

"There she is," he said, gesturing that she take a seat next to the young man with the shock of blond hair. "Bryon, Reed, the young woman with the issues getting her novel back from the cloud."

"Okay, nice to meet you, Reed," Bryon said, smiling politely. "I'm pretty sure we can take care of your problem, so don't worry, please."

"Wonderful," Reed answered, deciding not to worry if her shirt smelled.

He opened up what was to be her new laptop and his own next to hers, and got to work. He made funny little noises with his tongue as he worked, as though his brain were percolating, which Reed found very comforting.

"Right, see, no problem," he said. "Here's all your stuff, just sitting right here waiting for you, Reed." He hit some buttons, and things began happening on her laptop as the little beach ball began to spin.

Across from them, Duncan was grinning. "I told you all wasn't lost! There, all's well."

"Now, let's click on this, and see what we've got," Bryon was saying, hovering over her emails.

"No, that's fine," Reed said quickly. "I'm not worried about any of that, it's only my novel."

"This?"

"Yes."

"Let's give it a moment to finish—" Bryon watched it while he typed some other stuff and wrote some things down for Reed so she'd know how to do it herself, "—and here we go. Looks like we have everything up through 'Chapter 7: Ruark and Esmerelda go to the Ball.' Does that sound about right?"

Reed's smile fell off her face. "No no, I'd written up through Chapter 22 already."

"Oh." Bryon typed a few more numbers and sat back to wait. "Well, let's see what's going on." He typed a little more.

"Um, I had been getting a message lately about the cloud being full," Reed said hesitantly. "Does that matter?"

Duncan bit his lips together and looked at her, not without sympathy.

"Was that from around April 18th of this year?" Bryon asked, and the precision of the date made Reed's heart sink.

"I don't remember," she said helplessly. "I'm sorry."

"Well, I'm afraid Chapter 7 is as good as we're going to get," Bryon said. "That was the last time anything was backed up to the cloud."

Reed swallowed and sat back. "I understand. Thank you for trying, for doing all this." She spoke to both Bryon and Duncan. "I'm grateful to even have this much back. And I still have my notes—I take longhand notes in a notebook, the old fashioned way, so there's that—no, wait, that was in the apartment, too." She felt deflated. She'd lived Esme and Ruark's lives with them pretty much 24/7 for the last eight months, and now most of it was gone.

She looked up. Bryon, the nice man from Apple, was gone. When had that happened?

"Reed? You okay?" Duncan's voice was soft.

"What?"

"You've just been sat there, staring off into space, for a good ten minutes."

Reed shook her head slowly. "It's really gone." Her voice thickened, even as she tried to control it. "I didn't realize how much I was counting on this guy being able to retrieve everything. But he can't. He couldn't." She took a breath that ended in a hiccup, and Reed knew that tears weren't far behind. "My novel, the reason I uprooted my life and came out here, is gone, it's all gone! Oh god."

She needed to get to her room. She didn't want to burst into tears in front of Duncan. She rose in a hopeless attempt to make it out of the room in time, but banged her thigh into the corner of the bookcase instead, and let out a howl of pain.

"Oh no, Reed!" Duncan was beside her in an instant, arm around her, leading her back to the sofa and lowering her down.

"No, I need to leave, I can't do this in front of you," Reed protested, shaking her head.

"Do what?"

"This." Reed gestured at herself, at her face and the general leaky misery. "I don't like to cry in front of people, and this is going to be a serious storm, so please let me go."

Duncan released her immediately.

Reed looked at him, so surprised she forgot to cry. "You just let me go?"

"You told me to?"

"Right, but that's usually when the guy gets all 'No no, you can't just wander off and cry, I know better what's best for you,' and makes her sit down and cry on his shoulder or whatever, right?"

Duncan smiled, his dimple popping a little. "Well, I'll admit, I don't like the thought of you crying alone off in your room, but I'm not going to force you to take comfort from crying on my shoulder, then, am I?"

Reed smiled back, sniffing, her tears gone for the moment. "Thank you."

Duncan looked her up and down. "Didn't you say you were changing before the guy arrived? This is the same outfit I've come to know and love, isn't it?"

Reed sighed. She did not want to get into this subject with Duncan. But he was looking at her expectantly. "Most of the clothes I bought today didn't fit," she finally admitted. "They were too small."

Duncan blinked at her in surprise. "How'd that happen, then? Didn't you try them on?"

Reed looked down at her lap and shook her head.

"Why not?"

Reed shrugged. "I didn't want to, I guess," she finally said.

"And again, I ask, why not?"

"No time?"

"What? That's ridiculous, you came home with at least an hour to spare," Duncan said. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Did something happen at the shop?" His voice was soft.

"No. Yes. It's stupid."

"I'm listening."

"Your PA. Nancy." Reed shrugged again. "I just got the feeling she'd rather not spend a lot of time on my shopping, so I rushed, I guess."

"What?" Now Duncan sounded confused. "I reckoned you'd have a bit of fun, you know, girls out shopping for clothes in a money no object situation?"

"Oh Duncan, you did not!" Reed didn't mean for her voice to come out sounding quite so bitter. "Look at Nancy and look at me. On what planet is someone who looks like her going to have fucking fun shopping with someone who looks like me?"

"It wasn't fun?" Duncan repeated, his voice growing soft again.

"It wasn't fun." And now, at last, the tears which had been threatening all day, the last three days, actually, arrived at last, and Reed began to cry. She cried for her novel, she cried for her apartment, her arm, her car, her life, the pitiful life she'd tried to gerry-rig for herself, all of it gone, up in flames and smoke. She cried for the clothes she'd bought today, for mean, petty Nancy, who didn't like her and never would, and for Duncan, who didn't understand.

"You want to be alone?" he asked, concern in his lovely eyes.

Wordlessly, she shook her head, and leaned against his shoulder.

"Okay. Okay," he said, putting an arm around her.

She turned her body into his, taking what he had to offer, and he gathered her in, tucking her legs up into his side with his other arm so she'd be more comfortable. They remained that way for nearly half an hour before she could ride her tears with any kind of rhythm; at first it was just choking misery, a river of anguish for everything lost.

After a while he rose and returned with a cool washcloth to wipe her face. She turned into it wordlessly, murmuring her thanks, continuing to huff out warm breaths into his neck as she settled into his body.

He stretched out his long legs on the sofa, patting her bottom and stroking her back, offering what comfort he could as she continued to cry, letting everything out, as things tapered off.

And finally, after the storm, the ease, the calm.

Ah.

"Reed?" His voice was gentle as he stroked her shoulder. "You awake?"

"Yes." She tried to push herself off his body as she apologized.

"No, it's fine, I'm comfortable, don't go unless you want to," he said, so she relaxed back into him.

"I'm so sorry today was such misery for you," he continued in the same, soft voice. "We'll get those clothes out of here tomorrow, and get you some new ones, okay?"

Reed didn't know what to say. She wanted to tell him it was fine and he didn't have to bother because she felt bad, she felt guilty, but she needed clothes, so she simply said, "Okay. Thank you."